Natalie Portman's Secret to Success Is Not All About Hard Work

Yesterday, actress Natalie Portman led her alma mater Harvard University's 2015 Class Day ceremony. The keynote speech is 20-minutes of great, age-defying wisdom and rousing inspiration. Speaking of her own self-doubt upon arriving to Harvard, re-discovering her passion for acting, the huge importance of the experience over the payoff, and the blissful power and potential of being ill-prepared, unaware, and unexperienced, Portman encourages the grads to "make use of the fact that you don't doubt yourself too much right now," reminding us that "as we get older we get more realistic," and that "realism does us no favors” in terms of discovery. According to Portman, many of her own successes (that Black Swan Oscar, among them) were rooted in an at-times unfounded confidence which led her to take risks and then rise to the occasion. “You can never be the best. The only thing you can be the best at is developing your own self." We'll cheers to that.

Listen to Portman's speech now, then tell us what you thought in the comments!